Tag: newsletters

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

After a year and a half as President and an absolute monster year of volunteering, my friend Roel Loopers stepped down from the position as President to refocus and concentrate of his future directions. The Committee rearranged itself with me being elected by the Committee to fill the casual vacancy and Cathy Hall stepping up and being elected as Vice President to replace yours truly.

We moved out of our “home” of more than two years at Captain’s Lane and into a meeting place at Victoria Hall. Business for me began immediately with the City’s launch of the 2029 visioning forum, held at Victoria Hall, with a full house and standing room only. The City has to be commended for creating the vehicle for a community conversation about what we have here in Fremantle and where we want to go in the years ahead, leading to 2029 – one hundred years as a city. Whether we will make it to that point, as a city, was not exactly top of mind when it all began back in June, but since then, apart from the Grand Final, that question has really been the only game in town.

The big project that Roel had conceived of, and lobbied successfully for a significant grant, was the Freopedia project, launched by the Mayor, with much congratulations and excitement, during the Heritage Festival.

After initial problems with the quality of the plaques, the printers improved the product and the project progressed with a very professional end result. Roel’s report in this edition details the extent of the achievement to date.

After the front-page story with Melissa Parke MP announcing the Federal grant of $350K to the restoration of indigenous art at the Prison, the Society’s Fremantle Heritage Festival was a success, in collaboration to some extent with the Fremantle History Society. This year our focus was on the Amazing Place Race, the Four Courts Tour, the Club Crawl and Freopedia Launch. We acknowledge the generous support of our major sponsor; the Fremantle Business Improvement District, and also sponsors of the Amazing Place Race; Glen Cowan Gallery, Moore and Moore Cafe and Frank’s Gourmet Meats. After producing such a magnificent Festival program it was a crying shame that the City’s home letterbox delivery failed so miserably to get the message out to us at home.